Epitopological and pseudotopological fundamental group functors

Abstract

In these notes the epitopological and pseudotopological fundamental group functors are introduced. These are functors from the category of pointed epitopological and pseudotopological spaces respectively, to the category of their respective group-objects. Their restrictions to the full subcategory of topological spaces are lifts of the topologized fundamental group functor introduced in [Daniel K. Biss, The topological fundamental group and generalized covering spaces, Topology and its Applications, 124(3):355-371, 2002] and thus retain its information. At the same time, they show greater regularity inherited from the convenient properties of EpiTop and PsTop. Moreover, the use of such convenient categories permits, in principle, to apply general techniques from enriched homotopy theory. Our approach should be compared with the alternative improvement of Biss's functor developed in [Jeremy Brazas, The fundamental group as a topological group, Topology and its Applications, 160(1):170-188, 2013] within the topological setting. Several open problems, including those aimed at understanding the precise relation to Brazas's approach, are scattered throughout the text.